Erdogan Tightens Grip on Turkey, Putting Nation at Crossroads

By

Joe Parkinson

Updated June 27, 2013 3:38 a.m. ET

ISTANBUL—As mayor of Istanbul in the late 1990s, Recep Tayyip Erdogan publicly read a poem that included the lines: "The mosques are our barracks, the domes our helmets, the minarets our bayonets and the faithful our soldiers." The Islamist message earned him a few months in jail from Turkey's military-backed secular government.

A few years later, Mr. Erdogan re-emerged in politics as a champion of liberal democracy calling...